patrick_y[PuristSPro Moderator]
28515
More puff pieces to come... Readers don't want to discover something new but read facts they already know...
Jun 15, 2023,08:03 AM
A lot of Hodinkee's readers are very eager to gobble up the marketing rhetoric in puff pieces. One former Hodinkee Editor was even still quite adamantly vocal that "a Rolex takes a year to make" - she was definitely outdated if that was ever true. Hodinkee readers adore those kinds of little tidbit facts - inaccurate tidbit facts as they symbolize something that is easier and universal to understand.
Look at the three articles you indicated. The best one is clearly (well, maybe not clearly, as all three are very good, but the best one in my opinion) the one about the Laurent Ferrier by Jack Forster (who is a former alumni of this site). Forster detailed modern facts, technical facts, and ancient history about this watch... And sadly, this article will almost never be read - as most people are extremely brand conscious and have never heard of this brand and are thus less inclined to click on it. I don't know Jack Forster's motivations for this article - was he told to write a great article for a great advertiser by the editor in chief - or was he writing something great because he loved the watch so much himself - or a combination of the two. Either way, it's a very good article. Better than the recent average even on WPS, admittedly. Funny, that the best article out of these three will be the one with the lowest number of views - simply because the brand of the watch isn't well known. Readers aren't trying to discover something new - they're trying to reinforce their knowledge of what they already know... That repeat of facts they already know brings them delight in their mind (they think, "fantastic, I know that, I'm so right, pat myself on the back") and endorphins are released. But YOU are a special breed, you are happy to read about things that are less popular and learn things that you might not have known. Good for you! Hodinkee is on the trajectory to have fewer and fewer of this... But I hope it doesn't go away completely.